Math 4543: Numerical Methods
Lecture 1 — Introduction & Bisection Method
Syed Rifat Raiyan
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Islamic University of Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: rifatraiyan@iut-dhaka.edu
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 1
Introduction
First things first…
Google Classroom — hjqlnji
Relevant Resources
• Book/Lecture notes — Numerical Methods with Applications by Professor Dr. Autar Kaw
Link: http://nm.mathforcollege.com/NumericalMethodsTextbookUnabridged/
• Video Lectures — YouTube channel numericalmethodsguy
Link: https://www.youtube.com/@numericalmethodsguy
• Practise Problems — Holistic Numerical Methods website
Link: https://nm.mathforcollege.com/physical-problems/
Link: http://nm.mathforcollege.com/mws/che/
Keep an eye on the GC for the Slides and Lecture notes.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 2
Introduction
How to do well in this course?
Numerical
For the theory course Math 4543 — Methods
• Pay attention to the class lectures.
• Practise examples from the lecture notes and the HNM website.
• Solve previous-year questions (problems and derivations).
• Practise, practise, and practise…
For the lab course Math 4544 —
• Try to convert the algorithms taught in the class to pseudocode.
• Practise implementing them before attending the lab session.
• Key pre-requisite:
Basic knowledge about the Python programming language.
Familiarity with Google Colab or Jupyter Notebook.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 3
Lecture Plan
The agenda for today
• What are Numerical Methods?
• Why do we need them?
• Analytical solution vs. Numerical solution
• The Bisection Method of Solving a Nonlinear Equation
• The pros and cons of the method
Expect some mini quizzes!
(for easy attendance marks bonus 😉)
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 4
Numerical Methods
What are they and why do we need them?
Definition: Numerical methods are techniques to approximate mathematical processes
(examples of mathematical processes are integrals, differential equations, nonlinear equations).
Numerical methods are just one step in solving an engineering problem.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 5
Numerical Methods
What are they and why do we need them?
We end up with a quadratic equation (polynomial with degree 2).
Solving analytically, using the Solving numerically, using a numerical
quadratic formula. method e.g. the bisection method.
Get exact solutions.
Involves a lot of symbolic
manipulations. Get approximate solutions.
Converge till solution “good enough.”
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 6
Mini Quiz
Quantifying the goodness of an approximation
How can we judge how good of an approximation our guess is?
(given the ground-truth or the value of the guess in the previous iteration)
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 7
Mini Quiz
Quantifying the goodness of an approximation
We use absolute relative errors as our metric of judgement.
Remember your physics lab experiments?
(e.g. calculating the acceleration due to gravity using a pendulum)
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 8
Numerical Methods
More on why we need them
We need to resort to finding approximations because —
• We cannot solve the procedure analytically, e.g. the standard normal Cumulative Distribution
Function (CDF)
• The analytical method is intractable, such as solving a set of a 1000 simultaneous linear equations
for a 1000 unknowns.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 9
Bisection Method
For solving a Nonlinear Equation
One of the first numerical methods developed to find the root of a nonlinear equation
was the bisection method (also called the binary-search method).
It falls under the umbrella of bracketing methods.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 10
Bisection Method
Examining the cases (not changing signs)
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 11
Bisection Method
Examining the cases (changing signs)
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 12
Mini Quiz
An edge case?
Does the theorem fail in this case?
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 13
Bisection Method
The algorithm
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 14
Bisection Method
An example problem
Ignore for now.
We will revisit this later!
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 15
Bisection Method
An example problem
A sanity check of
the initial guesses.
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 16
Bisection Method
An example problem
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 17
Bisection Method
An example problem
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 18
Bisection Method
An example problem
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 19
Bisection Method
An example problem
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 20
Bisection Method
An example problem
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 21
Bisection Method
The pros and cons
GIF Link
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 22
Bisection Method
The pros and cons
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 23
Bisection Method
The pros and cons
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 24
Bisection Method
The pros and cons
Math 4543: Numerical Methods Lecture 1 SWE, IUT 25
